Why did Alexei Navalny return to Russia? Events leading up to Russian opposition figure explored

The most powerful opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, passed away on Friday, February 16. It followed after he took a stroll at the Polar Wolf Arctic prison colony, where he was serving a three-decade term, according to authorities.

According to CNN, he had been Putin's thorn in the side for a long time. He organized some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in recent history, ran a campaign against the ruling United Russia party, and revealed high-level corruption.

Alexei Navalny was actually not in Russia. However, according to the Times, he eventually returned and later explained his decision in an Instagram post on January 14, 2021. He stated in the same post that he never had any doubts about returning to his native country. He went on to say,

“The question ‘to return or not’ never stood before me. Mainly because I never left. I ended up in Germany, having arrived in an intensive care box, for one reason: they tried to kill me.”

---

Alexei Navalny recently died at the age of 47

Alexei Navalny died in the Russian prison (Image via Pexels)

Alexei Navalny was adamant about staying in Russia and continued to serve as an opposition politician for many years. He thought that going into exile would make him politically irrelevant and that encouraging Russians to criticize Putin from the security of the West would make him look hypocritical.

Russian authorities have reportedly spent more than ten years attempting to silence Navalny through a variety of means, according to outlets like the Guardian. In an apparent attempt to put pressure on Navalny, his brother Oleg received a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence, and Navalny was placed under house arrest in 2014. He was also poisoned with the help of Novichok in 2020.

According to the same source, the opposition leader of Putin posed a threat to the military regiment known as the Kremlin since he spoke about other issues, and not only about democracy and human rights.

Later, on January 17, 2021, after returning from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from an attempted murder that he and his allies had placed on the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny flew straight into the clutches of the Russian authorities. However, the Kremlin has consistently denied any participation.

The New Yorker has claimed that Navalny was taken into custody at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday, January 17, 2021. He was tried on Monday, January 18, in Khimki, which is close to Moscow. The court there ordered him to be detained for 30 days until his next trial, set on Friday, January 29.

He was aware that he would be taken into custody since Russian officials had announced their plans through official channels. Later, while staying in prison, Alexei Navalny used social media to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and to promote anti-war demonstrations across the nation.

In December 2023, Navalny was covertly moved to a Siberian prison colony. His team lost communication after he was abruptly transferred, which prompted a two-week search. He was then declared missing by his team.

Later, as per Reuters, on February 16, 2024, Friday, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District's Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Alexei Navalny felt ill following a stroll at the IK-3 correctional colony in Kharp, which is around 1,900 km northeast of Moscow.

It further reported that Navalny instantly lost consciousness and passed away and that attempts at reviving him were unsuccessful.